


Anti-climax

by kangeiko



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-07-06
Updated: 2004-07-06
Packaged: 2017-10-08 06:32:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the war, things carry on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anti-climax

  
Deep in the dungeons, he sometimes loses track of time. Days stretch into each other; one long expanse of time punctuated by brief periods of instruction. Sometimes he will catch his older students looking at him like a child looks at a harvest moon – wonder and fear and disbelief in equal parts.

He hears whispers that he is not human.

He is not.

There is nothing human about his drives. There is nothing human about his urges. Humans seek the sunlight; they count their days off one by one until they can count no more. All that defines humanity is shaped by their impatience; by their desire for *now*, *now*, *now*, not the always later that he lives in.

The children that he teaches cannot understand. Their eyes are wide and unseeing; their mouths open in disbelief.

"This," he says one day, "this is where we –" his hands are on the boy's neck, tilting his head back. "Here we –" He wraps long fingers around the thin white column and strokes downward. The body on the worktable is motionless, watching. Down, stroke his hands, down, "through peristalsis, focus here, pay attention! Ten points from Ravenclaw!" Down, stroke his hands, and the body convulses when the potion is forcibly swallowed.

"Do you understand?"

Some nights he works without coming up for air; long, endless stretches of time punctuated by the instruction of children. "Like *this*," he says, demonstrating. "This is how," and the boy awakes.

His students do not understand. They do not think him human.

He is not. He cannot be. No human would sacrifice themselves to posterity. No human could live this life, forever in this unforgiving spotlight. They cannot understand.

They think him a hero; those dead by his hands are merely fodder in their eyes.

Heroes have no sins to redeem. Heroes have no guilt.

Deep in the Hogwarts dungeons, Harry Potter works through the long stretch of night.

*  
fin


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